Family selection study among DNA samples collected from Amerindian ethnic group (Wayuu) in northern Colombia

Abstract

In the Sonoda-Tajima Cell Collection, one of the cell bank of RIKEN BioResource Center, DNA samples from an Amerindian ethnic minority group (Wayuu) in Colombia analysed for 21 autosomal STRs, 17 Y-STRs and HV-I and -II regions in mtDNA to select the kinships among those samples in order to study on how the kinships influence population genetic analysis. As a result, totally 17 kinships including 4 mother–child, 6 one-parent-two-child, 3 sibling relationships, and 4 kinds of complicated kinships were selected. All the paternal linages were confirmed by the Y-STR haplotypes. The sequence data of almost the maternal linages were concordant with each relationship. When compared between the 98-samples population and the 78-samples population in which the first degree of parentage relationships were removed, no significant difference was observed at allele frequency distributions, and the topology in a NJ-tree with the data from the other 20 ethnic groups in South America was not different. It suggested that about one-fifth of parentage relationship in such population size does not influence population genetic analysis.